Hurricane Nicole - one of the long-lived storms of the 2016 season - is now churning across the North Atlantic towards the Denmark Strait and is projected to pass through the region of the DS battle on Thursday - possibly as a "post-tropical cyclone" - a system which has lost its "warm core" tropical characteristics and become "cold core".

Nicole formed in the Atlantic north of Puerto Rico while Hurricane Matthew was carving its path of death and destruction though the Caribbean islands, hung around for several days, going in circles almost before turning north-east, slamming Bermuda with a direct hit as a Category 3 hurricane (Bermuda is very resilient and came through relatively well) and is now heading towards the DS, at this point still retaining its "warm core" characteristics as a tropical system, despite being so far north.

It may well have been a similar weather event in 1940 when the Scheer passed through the Denmark Strait into the Atlantic. The warship was crashing into massive breakers, and buffeted by hurricane force wind gusts. The Scheer was being tossed around so violently that men could not stand up passing through companion ways with out the aid of ropes. Several men suffered orthopedic injuries. One man was washed overboard and lost. Visibility was down to 300 meters.

Entering a night sea battle is an awesome business.The enveloping darkness, hiding the enemy's.. seems a living thing, malignant and oppressive.Swishing water at the bow and stern mark an inexorable advance toward an unknown destiny.

I think is quite possible that it could have been the remnants of a tropical system!

According to Wiki, there was a tropical storm (Tropical Storm 9) that developed from a system north of Hispaniola that moved north east past Bermuda, becoming "extra-tropical" with winds reaching 80 mph east of Newfoundland but eventually dissipated. This was between Oct 24 - 26, 1940. It could be that the remnants continued north east into the DS region treating the Scheer to her wild ride on October 31!

Of course, back then, the tracking of these systems was not all that precise....but still...interesting!

(And one more thing - the weather maps/satellite photo I posted above will change as they are updated on the source website and will eventually be lost when Nicole ceases to exist.)